The rivers in Nashville run mustard yellow
Meanwhile, NBA championship set for redemptive clash after one-sided buildup
BULLS OF THE WEEK
For the first time in the 50-year expansion era of the National Hockey League, a team has reached the Stanley Cup final in consecutive years for a third time. That’s the way the Pittsburgh Penguins — the defending Stanley Cup champions — are celebrating their 50th-anniversary season after a dramatic 3-2 win in double overtime against the visiting, plucky Ottawa Senators on Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena.
It marks the third time the Penguins are in back-to-back finals after winning twice in the Mario Lemieux era in 1991 and 1992 and then splitting a pair of finals against the Detroit Red Wings in the early years of the franchise revitalization project keyed by Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin (winning in 2009 after finishing as runners-up in 2008).
Yet despite how bullish a week it has been for Lemieux the coowner and governor; Jim Rutherford, the general manager; Mike Sullivan, the head coach; and for Crosby, Malkin and company, it pales in comparison to the buzz that’s surrounding the Nashville Predators.
Twenty years into their history, the eighth-seeded Predators are in their first Stanley Cup final after eliminating the Anaheim Ducks in a six-game Western Conference championship.
It’s a remarkable accomplishment for a franchise that was pushed into bankruptcy protection a decade ago and went through several permutations of ownership turmoil, including the infamous William (Boots) DelBaggio period and the relocation designs of former BlackBerry czar and Research in Motion cofounder Jim Balsillie.
In their milestone season, the Predators are arguably the best run of the U.S. Sunbelt franchises when it comes to both hockey operations under the leadership of GM David Poile and business operations led by former New York Yankees busboy Sean Henry, who has been the CEO in Nashville since December 2015.
With a terrific goaltender in Pekka Rinne, a vaunted defence, the P.K. Subban factor and a celebrity entourage that includes Carrie Underwood (wife of team captain Mike Fisher), the Predators are making mustard fashionable in June, despite being prohibitive underdogs to the similarly mustard-and-black Penguins.
BEARS OF THE WEEK
It was a bad week for the notion of competitive balance in the NBA. Yes, the Boston Celtics took one game from Cleveland in the Eastern Conference final, but in general the defending champion Cavaliers and their archrival Golden State Warriors have coasted to the NBA Finals in predictable fashion.
It took the Cavaliers 13 games to get there while the Warriors became the first team in NBA history to reach the final unbeaten in 12 games over three rounds.
On one hand, it’s a bearish situation for the NBA because of how many pundits, media commentators and fans had pencilled in a Cleveland-Golden State final months ago; arguably ever since the day Kevin Durant bolted from the Oklahoma City Thunder to make the Warriors a veritable all-star team last July.
Having said all of that, despite how brutally one-sided the first three rounds have been, the so-called Trilogy III rematch between the Cavaliers and Warriors will draw monster TV ratings on the strength of familiarity, rivalry and volumes of star power.
If the NBA has its way, it will make up for the past six weeks of yawners.
The Sport Market on TSN 1040 rates and debates the bulls and bears of sport business. Join Tom Mayenknecht Saturday from 7 to 11 a.m. for a behind-the-scenes look at the sport business stories that matter most to fans.